Page 28 of The Savage Queen

The Lady’s fingers tensed at the loom, snapping a string. Her nostrils flared at the smell of Ocras on his breath. A potent warning.

“You and I,Faerak, want the same,” she said, the spider atop her face twitching as she continued her work on the loom. “For this violet thread not to indulge a hand of thorns, lest she find herself forever tangled in a greenwood, slaked only by strength and power.”

Aisling felt the electricity of Dagfin’s temper before she saw it. The heavy, open sea storms thundering in his eyes.

“A hand of thorns,” Aisling repeated. “You reference Lir.”

Dagfin frowned at the mention of his name.

“The dark lord of the greenwood, the white stag, the Sidhe king, yourcaera. Aye. Every breath nearer to one another, every touch closer, will only ever herald desolation in both this realm and the next.”

Aisling’s eyes pricked with heat.

Dagfin’s attention darted between Aisling and the Lady.

“Caera?” he asked.

“Woven together by my threads of fate, dipped in the Forge, and made potent by blood. I created the first threads but from then on, they take a life of their own. Growing, traveling, choosing what they will until it is entirely outside my control. My only duty to the loom.”

Aisling dared not glance at Dagfin, bracing against the cool edge of the woodland breeze.

“Stay away from the Sidhe king, Aisling,” she commanded, fanning embers of rage in Aisling’s chest.

Dagfin rolled his shoulders back, cracking his neck side to side, teeth bared. “You did this. You bound her to the fae king.”

The Lady laughed, the sound of it shattering the ice clinging to every branch till it showered in knife sharp blades around them all.

“No,Faerak. You did.”

Dagfin didn’t hesitate.

The insinuation he’d bound Aisling to Lir because of his complicity in trading her to the fae striking a furious chord.

He threw his dagger, its iron cutting toward the Lady with unparalleled accuracy. But the Lady didn’t flinch. Instead, she smiled, watching as the surrounding trees intercepted the knife and slammed it into the earth, knocking Aisling, Dagfin, and their mare off their feet.

Aisling cursed beneath her breath. Trees of all shape and form were under the sovereignty of Lir, so what magic did the Lady boast that snuffed that of others?

“What say you, Aisling? Heed me and prosper. Disobey me and breed ruin.”

The pines thrashed violently, roots rising from the earth as the Lady sat still as the moon, orbited by the crystal limbs of the winter woodland.

Aisling found her footing and glared at the Lady in return. Arrogant, she sat straight before her tapestry, twisting threads and pulling at their bodies with her slender fingers. Each thread, one of fate. A life controlled, dictated, spun, and put to use. A life stolen. A life lost. As Aisling’s own had once been: used by kings and discarded when necessary. Only for the Sidhe to call her “thief” and the mortals to whisper “traitor” behind her back.

Aisling shook her head, ignoring the angry turning of her stomach. The heat pricking her fingertips. Danu had foreseen a similar fate between Aisling and Lir. And warned them both of its outcome.

Yet Aisling found she cared little for either the Lady’s or Danu’s visions. They were manipulations. For what was seen had not yet come to pass.

This was never about Aisling and Lir. Whether she and the fae king were near, far, together, or apart was irrelevant. This was rather another means of manipulation. For the Lady was accustomed to snipping, threading, and weaving her threads, grown frustrated with one that refused to comply with her work. To be sown, pulled, and cut into strict order. A fact that rippled through Aisling with incomparable satisfaction.

Aisling lifted her chin.

Screaming, the mare reared. The wind howled through the trees and danced with Aisling’s hair till it fanned around her, as though submerged beneath the water. Inky black and alive. Her eyes glistening a shade brighter.

“Disobey me and breed ruin!” the Lady said, this time louder.

Aisling gritted her teeth. “I say ruin.”

The spider atop the Lady’s face bled black, shuddering with the Lady’s rage. The world upturned, folding the Lady in a pocket of the Other, and leaving devastation in its wake.

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